Birthright
by avocadomoon
Summary: Phoebe never had to go out to clubs to find men to date and friends to drink with because you wanted someone to know you existed, because you worried that if you got mugged or hit by a car or something, the hospital wouldn't be able to find anybody they could call for you. But Paige knew what that was like, and so did Henry.


Paige never quite settles into trusting it, but then again she's never trusted anything: not herself, not her family, not even her own magic. Some days she still wakes up and has a minute where she believes it was all a dream: a weird, half-nightmare/half-fantasy where her birth mother was a magical, perfect saint who left her a ready-made family, complete with cool teleportation powers and a big, beautiful mansion to live in, at the top of the highest hill in San Francisco.

"That was what first convinced me you know," Henry says, "that you were something different. Something special."

"The mansion?" Paige asks.

"The story," he says. "Long lost birth family, welcoming you into the family no questions asked...I mean, come on."

This is true, that it's every orphan's dream. Henry was an orphan too: he used to daydream that his birth father, who had left him at a restaurant in the Castro when he was eight months old, would show up one day in a big black convertible. It was all a mistake! A mix up, really. Hop in, son - let's go for a ride.

"I don't know why it was a black convertible, but I remember being very particular about that part," he explains, "you know, like that red one the family on Full House had? Only mine was _black._ Because it was cooler."

"Oh my God, _Full House,_" Paige says, passionate about the sudden memory, "I watched every single episode a million times. And the sad part was that I was in my 20s."

"That's not sad," Henry says, "what's sad is that I used to tag along to my college roommate's house on Thanksgiving breaks because I really wanted to have turkey dinner with somebody. It just really wasn't the same, trying to cook it for just yourself."

"I used to lie and say that my parents were overseas," Paige confides. "My best friend in grad school still thinks they're on an extended tour of Europe."

"Wasn't your best friend from grad school that guy you were in love with for years and years?" Henry teases. "New Zealand guy, the only other one who knows you're a witch?"

"You know," Paige says, "normally I am very flattered by this quality of yours to remember the smallest little detail of every story I've ever told you, but it occurs to me now that it can be a little awkward for me sometimes."

"Tough," Henry says, and kisses her cheek.

Paige would never tell Phoebe or Piper this, but Henry understands her better than they do, and that's not something that's ever going to change. Paige hadn't realized before how routine it had become to pretend like she understood something that she didn't, to nod along sadly when someone talked to her about Grams as if Paige had known her too (she _hadn't!_ Ghosts don't _count!_), to act like she felt the same kind of way as everyone else did about the things they took for granted. Phoebe had been the wild child, the one everyone worried about, but she still didn't know what it was like to really be alone: to walk through the world with the cold hard certainty that _nobody_ would worry about you, if you were late getting home that night. Phoebe never had to go out to clubs to find men to date and friends to drink with because you wanted someone to know you existed, because you worried that if you got mugged or hit by a car or something, the hospital wouldn't be able to find anybody they could call for you. But Paige knew what that was like, and so did Henry.

And Piper! God knows Piper would _try,_ Piper would lean in close and furrow her brow angrily like she always does when she's sad or worried, she'd rub Paige's arm and swear up and down that she's there for her always, no matter what, but she still doesn't _get it,_ she still forgets sometimes when she references things that happened before Paige even knew the Halliwells existed, and then looks surprised, taken aback, when Paige has to ask her to tell the whole story. _Oh, I forgot,_ she always says, mildly surprised. And then she skips some of the details.

Of course they don't do it on purpose. Every year on her parents' birthdays, Phoebe turns up on Paige's doorstep with a truly gigantic bottle of wine, and they drink it together on the floor of Paige's living room and cry into each other's shoulders until dawn. Piper has pictures of Paige's family on her walls, right next to Chris and Wyatt's baby pictures and the old black and whites of Penny and Allen. Leo is careful to include them in his prayers before family dinner; even the kids will ask Paige sometimes about Grandma and Grandpa Matthews, which means they talk about them even when Paige isn't around. She loves them for it - oh, how she loves them. But it's just...not the same.

Henry had, in many ways, much worse luck than she did. At least she had eighteen years with her parents - good parents, people who loved her more than anything. It was the loss of that that was so devastating, knowing that she'd been _so_ lucky once upon a time, that she'd been loved so fiercely and now that love was gone, but Henry - Henry had never had anybody. There was one foster family, when he was about fifteen, that he still speaks of fondly, and of course there's Mack, another kid he'd been in the group home with for the last two years before they both aged out. He came over for dinner every now and then, had a wife and kids out in Menlo Park. But nobody else - not really. No magical family that dropped out of the sky.

"No offense honey," he says, "but they're such a pain in the ass sometimes, I think one really is enough for the two of us."

"That's how they show affection. Being gigantic pains in our asses."

"I'm aware," Henry says dryly. But he's smiling. "I don't regret anything, you know. You always make it sound like I was little orphan Annie. Mostly I was just bored. Bored and at loose ends, getting myself into trouble."

Paige lays her palm against his rough cheek, and she can feel the low beat of his heart where her arm is sitting, pressed up against his chest as they sit up in their bed. They'd picked everything out in this apartment themselves - painstakingly, carefully. When she was pregnant with Kat, she'd cried every morning - stupid hormones - and she'd calm herself down by going from room to room, wall to wall - touching each chair, table, curtain, throw pillow. Reminding herself of the time they'd spent, the effort they'd made to build it. It was _theirs:_ totally new. Paige might have inherited most of her life from a dead woman she's never met, but this part - this precious, beautiful part - is hers and hers alone.

"I'm glad I found you anyway," she says. "Or did you find me? I can't remember."

"Let's split the difference: we found each other."

"I like it," Paige says, smiling. On the other side of their bedroom wall, they can hear their daughter staying up too late, playing a TV show on her tablet beneath a blanket that she thinks muffles the sound. Henry makes a face when they hear her exclaim something out loud - a word she's _definitely_ not supposed to know yet - and Paige laughs at him despite herself. "Sorry. That one's my fault."

"Oh, I know that," Henry says, but Paige can tell he likes the idea: that Kat is picking things up from them, one by one. Paige's bad-word-habit, Henry's grumpy morning faces. Paige can see the Halliwell legacy in Kat's magic, but her personality is pure Matthews-Mitchell. "It's your turn to be the bad guy."

"Aw, I was the bad guy just last week!"

"No, that was me - when we had to take away her phone at the dinner table, remember?"

Paige frowns. "I thought that was before the thing with the rollerblades."

"We really should start a journal or something," Henry says. "Tally marks on the bathroom mirror."

Paige likes that idea too. "I could always write a spell," she teases.

"No."

"It would be like, a tiny, itty-bitty spell though. No personal gain at all."

"Let me rephrase," Henry says, kissing her cheek again, "_hell_ fucking no."

"Fine," Paige says, still grinning. They'll split the difference somehow, probably.


End file.
